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Wednesday, 6 February 2013

Perfect Effect PE DX01 Motobot RC (Pink Version) - Pictorial Review

This time, the choice of review would be a tad bit different than usual. But first, let us see the background of this important Transformers character.

This bot first made an appearance in the 1986's Transformers The Movie, and stayed all throughout the franchise till this day, keep on being updated and reimagined. Although not always great (and there were worst time), the bot have a special place in every TF fans all around.

The bot....she, is Arcee

Not the first female Robot (Fembot) being introduced but she became a regular and can be seen in most of Transformers continuity (maybe not all). Not to be fooled by her appearance, Arcee was an excellent gunner and marksman. During Season 3 and Season 4 of Transformers G1, she can be seen joining missions with Rodimus Prime, Ultra Magnus, Springer and others.

With a female character, there's bound to be love story. Although not much (nor apparent), Arcee was said to have feelings for Hot Rod which withered with his transformation to Rodimus Prime in which she grew closer with Springer.

In Season 1 and Season 2 of Transformers G1, we have our human friend, Spike, being taken cared of by Bumblebee, Arcee somewhat held the same responsibility with Spike's son, Daniel, especially in the last 3 episode of US G1 where Daniel became Arcee's Headmaster partner (although the 3 episodes were ignored during the Transformers Headmasters continuity)

It's interesting to note that there's several version of 'explanation' on where fembots came from. In the animation, it was made clear that there were fembot even before Arcee. In Marvel UK, Arcee came to being as a respond by the Autobots to the human accusation of them being Sexist (WTF?).

But the worst of all.....the origin introduced in the IDW comic....

Yes....I understand...
Pic Credit : Web

Transformers Energon
Pic Credit : Web

Arcee made recurrent appearance in other series such as Headmasters, Energon, Animated, Prime as well as the second movie, Revenge of The Fallen, also in vast amount of publications.

Let's get back to G1 Arcee. Despite being popular, Arcee was damned to never have her G1 toy. There's a lot of rumors as to why this happened, some said the popularity of a female character to not be appealing to boys and another was the abomination of the prototype design.

There was an effort to release a G1 Arcee toy under the Titanium Line but it stop with the death of the line.

There's a few versions of Arcee toys post-G1 in which mostly depicting Arcee as either a motorcycle or car. But one of the most popular of all would be iGear MGT-01 Delicate Warrior

Pic Credit : Web

Yes, the fan rejoice! The G1-accurate incarnation of Arcee. I was fortunate enough to own her and I was pleased. However....the release used her G1-accuracy to make people forget...it was an overly expensive release with crappy quality. "Delicate Warrior" was not just a name I guess.

Despite all that, to each their own i guess. I could understand fans wanted a G1-accurate version of her in which, Delicate Warrior is the way to go.

PE-11 Scouting Force

Now, let me go ahead to the main event. Perfect Effect, a company that is known for releasing an updated version of Frenzy, Rumble and also other G1 cassettes.

However, their breakthrough release would be PE-11 Scouting Force, their take on G1's Reflector.

On August 2011, Perfect Effect release a concept images of what seems to be a homage of G1 Arcee (in robot mode) and prototype of it next to some Classics-verse figures. Many fans (myself included) hold judgement for her due to the fact that her alt mode is a futuristic motorcycle rather than car. But due to my dissapointment with Delicate Warrior, I opted for her on a whim and found myself really happy.

In Package

In Package - Front View

Presenting, PE-DX01 Motobot RC by Perfect Effect. Packagin wise, they stayed with the theme used in their previous releases which homaging to G1 packaging

In Package - Back View

On the back, you have graphics of RC in short, all mode and also her best features, articulation. But we'll get into that later

Inside look

RC was actually sold out at the time that I started looking for her.
Luckily a local shop offers me his last piece which comes with a small
little defect, a missing part on her right leg. So for the purpose of this review, I'll detached the one on her left leg

RC came in with an instruction and a short comic book. The instruction's quite simple while the comic book was really done nicely with beautiful arts

Full comics as opposed to Fansproject's instruction comic

As usual, although packed in Robot Mode, I will start the review of her in Alt Mode first

Alt Mode

Neo-G1 Not-Arcee

Gorgeous!

Comes in beautiful colors of pink homaging her G1 self (although in brigher tone), RC transform into a futuristic motorcycle (which somehow reminded me of Tron Legacy) as some of her incarnation did in Transformers Energon, Transformers Prime and Revenge of The Fallen

Side View

RC alt mode really has a clean transformation and look. All the accessories that comes with her is neatly integrated in her alt mode.

Her accessories are really well placed that you would only see what the parts are supposed to be up-close

Back View

One complaint though, RC's fists are clearly visible in this angle which in a way disrupt her 'flawless' alt mode. But minor complaint though as this is actually a really great alt mode.

Well, this comparison shot is kinda expected. Considering the scale, a bot with a motorcycle mode have to be in Legend/Legion size to be at least almost in scaled.

Robot Mode

First, let us see what RC came in with

What RC carries in her handbag

This might not be a great sight for those who opposed part-forming. But if you are even slightly well versed with Perfect Effect's releases, PE-11 Scouting Force for instance, this isn't something new. However, one thing to compensate is that all of Perfect Effect releases had a great way of storing all of the parts so that it could be used in both Alt and Robot Mode.

Closed-up

Fully equipped

As were other Perfect Effect's releases, RC are able to equipped ever single accessories she came with. 2 things that bothers me though. First of all, having all of the accessories on her kind of limit her posebility and parts starting to bang into each other with every movement.

The second one would be her visor! It's way oversized, not to mention it just sits there without any real lock or peg.

So far that reason, I'll be taking of the visor and also the parts that made up her sniper rifle

Here she is, without all the extra parts hanging on her. My take on RC is that, she's exactly how a Classics-Verse Arcee should look like, Perfect Effect did a good job in designing her.

Perfect Effect's previous releases comes with strong plastics even though the figures were small. And the same kinda of plastics are used for RC. It might not felt like it, but the material used is really sturdy and strong

Size comparison

Back View

Aside from the wings which is a homage to G1 Arcee, RC is kibble free with all her weapons attached to her back (aside from the sniper rifle)

She (suprisingly) comes with 4 die-cast plate, 2 for each leg, attached to the side of the legs. This gave her extra weight that improve her stability

Karate girl!

No, I seldom come across a figure that have both stability and posebility to do this pose, without using any stand etc.

Articulations

She has ball jointed shoulders, swivel joints on the arm and the wrist. The elbow bends more than shown in the picture

Aside from the waist on swivel joint, she also came with a pivot joint on her abs that allow 180o of movement from back to the front

Leg articulations allows her a wide range of pose

Now, weaponry, let us start with her handguns

Simple handguns that are stored on her backpack. It's made out of solid plastics despite the size

Matrix anyone?

Next, sniper rifle. To tell you the truth, a lot of figures that included this weapon failed in terms of the feel of using it but RC (to me) pulled it off nicely. The rifle have a stand in which I forgot take a picture of RC using it. My bad!

Snipers hide?

Last but not least, her twin swords. Personally, I like these better as a weapon. The swords felt a bit thin on the blade but I've on several occasions accidentally bend them not no stress marks begin to show

The choice of including these are heavily influenced by her appearance in the IDW continuity

That face...WTF?

RC has a combo of superb articulations and great choice of weapons which increased her playability (and felt good to take photos of)

I'm sure a lot of people are still finding the right filler for their G1 Arcee spot. I can't speak for others but I do felt Motobot RC is the right choice for me. She is well balanced between aethetics, quality and design. Highly recommended!